Jackwagon

Jackwagon – According to the Urban Dictionary, http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jackwagon

a crybaby loser pussy-type who needs to grow some cajones and start acting like a man

Billy: “Dude, I can’t get Ronnie to play tackle football with us ’cause he’s too afraid of getting hit.”  Jimmy: “It doesn’t surprise me, he’s always been a

friggen’ jackwagon anyway.”

So it goes a little something like this.  We’ve had a topsy turvy year and if you told me that we could have 3 losses and advance to Districts – well who could ask for more?  Despite our rapacious desire to advance – there have been many bright spots to remember.  First, our flight will be well represented by Just for Fun and the Pirates, different teams are advancing to Districts in the other flights and many solid players will get a well deserved chance to show what they can do in post season play – that’s all good.  We’ve had a fun year, many a great after party and we’ve made some new friends.

But talk about seizing defeat from victory.  Going into our final match of the year we needed to take all three courts from the Wild Aces captained by Paul Wilson and hope that Just for Fun lost a single individual court against UMLY.  That combination would have advanced us to Districts.  We were playing Wild Aces, a team that ended the season 2-10 and Just for Fun still had to play UMLY captained by Jim Taylor who is as good as any team in our flight.

After some consideration we played a fairly strong lineup as we didn’t want to take too many chances.  We lost 9 games total (3 individual matches in 6 overall sets) the last time we played the Wild Aces this season and we went with a weaker lineup.  Perhaps this was the classic trap match in that we weren’t

overlooking our opponents but we surely didn’t have the focus and fire in our bellies to win.  On top of this, Paul inverted his lineup playing a 7.5 combo on court 1, a 7.0 combo on court 2 and an 8.0 combo on court 3.  I have no issue with this and clearly Paul used a strategic lineup.

On court one, Lynn Dickson and Anthony Phandinh won 6-3, 7-6 against Gary McGeehan and Alyssa Jill White.  This is a terrific performance by Alyssa and Gary in that Lynn & Anthony’s other win was a straight set victory over one of the top teams for the Pirates who have only lost once all year.  This was the last court to finish and it was a surprisingly tight match.

On court two, what has become an anchor team in Veronica Loch and Chris Kyper faced off against Heather Sharpe and Paul Wilson.  Veronica and Chris is a team that is very capable of winning a Sectionals match and yet again, the Wild Aces forced us to 5 all in the first set but we managed to pull out a 7-5, 6-2 victory.  We had a few wobbles here but we managed to keep the train on the tracks.

Now to court three…  This is where my partner Kathleen Glikes and I faced Viera Thibault and Glenn Stephenson.  Kathleen and I have played well together

this year.  We are in the semi-finals of our inter-team tournament (Kings & Queens) and I haven’t lost a Philly 8.0 regular season match since 2009 as I was previously undefeated this year and all of last year.  We started out 2-0 in the first set and 3-0 in the second – and we got murdered!  We simply were taken out of our game.  I am stronger at the net and our opponents wisely lobbed us into submission.  We made far too many errors and I can remember at most 5 coming from our opponents all match.  It was a slow, painful death as we fought off the onslaught but with as well as they were playing and the style matchup nightmare; we were swimming upstream.  We did make some adjustments and started at the baseline but like any good team that takes another one out of their comfort zone, they kept the pressure on.  As we adjusted, they were able to take advantage of our adjusted court positioning.  I thought to myself, I’ve got to concentrate… concentrate… concentrate… Hello?… hello… hello… Echo… echo… echo… Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon… Manny Mota… Mota… Mota…  Oh well, we lost 7-5, 6-4 and Viera and Glenn could not have been nicer (this didn’t help my mood at the time by the way).

I went to UMLY the following night and watched a fantastic match between UMLY and Just For Fun.  Both teams brought their best and it was a war.  Jimmy Yen (UMLY) played awesome and defeated Ed Sison 7-5 in the 3rd set for what should have sent us to Districts.  Tania Sawchak also played superlative tennis and she made it to a 3rd set that if she’d won we’d still have advanced to the post season.  But, like I’ve said previously, when it comes to close matches, you win some and you dim sum.  Both UMLY and us went to the Boat

House in Wayne afterwards and at least that helped take some of the sting out of the previous evening.  Bottom line, there are some negatives about USTA tennis, there are the occasionally morally flaccid opponents and then of course various injuries to manage.  However, the opportunity to compete, to enjoy your  friends and play good tennis does make it all worthwhile – at least I keep telling myself that.

Highlights for 2011 Pork Chops and Applesauce squad include Veronica Loch who notched the most wins for the team this season (5) with no losses.  Other top contributors with 4 wins each are Joe Ferry, Chris Kyper and Billy McElroy.  They only other undefeated players we had were Lynn Dickson, Ying Lopez and Anthony Phandinh.   Time to focus on the fast approaching Adult season.  Thanks team – I hope you enjoyed the ride.